Iron Butterfly

If the third Saturday in April is one of the first days you circle whenever you buy a new calendar, then you already know when Record Store Day is, but you may not be aware that the folks who put together that most vaunted of days for vinyl lovers have also gotten into the habit of making the most of the day after Thanksgiving, too.

Rhino has nine limited edition releases set for Record Store Day Black Friday 2014. A variety of colored vinyl options, multi-LP sets, and an epic picture disc are sure to captivate fans and collectors alike. All roads lead to November 28 when these releases will be available exclusively at select independent music retailers. For a list of participating stores, please visit www.recordstoreday.com.

This week’s Mono Monday release is one of the more underrated albums in Iron Butterfly’s back catalog, which is to say that it’s an album that’s not In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

That’s the problem with having a signature album: it doesn’t take long for history to start treating that album as the only thing you ever released that was worth a damn. If you look back, though, you’ll see that Metamorphosis actually featured the second biggest chart hit of Iron Butterfly’s career: “Easy Rider (Let the Wind Pay the Way),” which made it to #66 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Originally released on August 13, 1970, Metamorphosis came on the heels of the possibly misguided decision to release follow two top-10 albums – the aforementioned In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, which came out in 1968, and Ball, which hit stores in ’69 – with a live album. Maybe it was intended as a stop-gap measure between studio albums, maybe it was because the band’s concerts were somewhat legendary and they wanted to try and share the experience with fans who hadn’t yet seen them, but while Live may have made it to #20 on the Billboard Top 200, it also came out only four months before Metamorphosis, which means that it very likely served to dilute the studio album’s sales.

46 years ago today, guitarist Erik Brann, drummer Ron Bushy, bassist Lee Dorman, and singer/organist Doug Ingle – known collectively as Iron Butterfly – entered Ultrasonic Studios in Long Island, New York, and recorded the greatest gift to DJs with urinary tract infections in the history of rock ‘n’ roll radio: “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

Written by Ingle, the origins of the song’s title are a little sketchy, but the general consensus seems to be that Ingle was under the influence of something or other when he originally told Bushy the song’s title, and Bushy wrote down Ingle’s slurred words to the best of his ability. Whether it was originally intended to be called “In the Garden of Eden” or not, it hardly matters, because thanks to The Simpsons, everyone is forever going to presume that was the case, anyway.

On this day in 1969, supporting Steel Mill, Iron Butterfly appeared at the Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. At the time, Iron Butterfly released their third studio album which was their most successful album. It reached #3 in the US charts. Here is their classic single "Soul Experience."